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Overview

CAUTION: You’re about to enter the world of Ann Coulter

How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must), the instant New York Times bestseller, shows why Ann Coulter has become the most recognized—and controversial—conservative intellectual in years. Coulter ranges far and wide in this powerful and entertaining book, which draws on her weekly columns. No subject is off-limits, no comment left unsaid. She even includes a special chapter featuring the pieces that squeamish editors refused to publish—“what you could have read if you lived in a free country.”

In How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must)—which features a brand-new chapter special to the paperback edition—Coulter offers her unvarnished take on:

• The essence of being a liberal: “The absolute conviction that there is one set of rules for you, and another, completely different set of rules for everyone else.”

• Her 9/11 comments: “I am often asked if I still think we should invade their countries, kill their leaders, and convert them to Christianity. The answer is: Now more than ever!”

• The state of the Democratic Party: “Teddy Kennedy crawls out of Boston Harbor with a quart of Scotch in one pocket and a pair of pantyhose in the other, and Democrats hail him as their party’s spiritual leader.”

• The “Treason Lobby”: “Want to make liberals angry? Defend the United States.”

• How far the Left has sunk: “Liberals have been completely intellectually vanquished. Actually, they lost the war of ideas long ago. It’s just that now their defeat is so obvious, even they’ve noticed.”

Product Details

About the Author

Ann Coulter is the author of three other New York Times bestsellers: Treason, Slander, and High Crimes and Misdemeanors. She is the legal correspondent for Human Events and a syndicated columnist for Universal Press Syndicate. You can read her weekly column on her website, www.anncoulter.com.

Read an Excerpt

Chapter 1

How to Talk to a Liberal

Historically, the best way to convert liberals is to have them move out of their parents' home, get a job, and start paying taxes. But if this doesn't work, you might have to actually argue with a liberal. This is not for the faint of heart. It is important to remember that when arguing with liberals, you are always within inches of the "Arab street." Liberals traffic in shouting and demagogy. In a public setting, they will work themselves into a dervish-like trance and start incanting inanities: "Bush lied, kids died!" "racist!" "fascist!" "fire Rumsfeld!" "Halliburton!" Fortunately, the street performers usually punch themselves out eventually and are taken back to their parents' house.

Also resembling the Arab street, liberals are chock-full of conspiracy theories. They invoke weird personal obsessions like a conversational deus ex machina to trump all facts. You think you're talking about the war in Iraq and suddenly you start getting a disquisition on Nixon, oil, the neoconservatives, Vietnam (Tom Hayden discusses gang violence in Los Angeles as it relates to Vietnam), or whether Bill O'Reilly's former show, Inside Edition, won the Peabody or the Peanuckle Award. This is because liberals, as opposed to sentient creatures, have a finite number of memorized talking points, which they periodically try to shoehorn into unrelated events, such as when Nancy Pelosi opposed the first Gulf war in 1991 on the grounds that it would cause environmental damage in Kuwait. Oddly enough, about half of liberal conspiracy theories involve the Jews. So be prepared for that.

A major impediment to arguing with liberals is: They refuse to argue. Liberals' idea of a battle of wits is to say "Bush lied!" in front of adoring college audiences and be wildly applauded for their courage. They're like hack road comics who coax a cheap round of applause out of audiences by declaring, "I just quit smoking!" or "My wife just had a baby!" Without a Roman Coliseum-style audience to give them standing ovations for every idiotic utterance, you get the liberal disappearing act.

At a loss whenever anyone argues back, liberals have a number of stratagems to prevent conservatives from talking. They shout conservatives down; unplug reporters' microphones; edit conservatives' answers in pretaped TV shows (Hardball) to make the conservative look like a monkey; burn student newspapers; and heckle conservative speakers. When John Stossel went to Brown University for a report on "date rape," he was mobbed by angry protesters chanting, "Rape is not TV hype!"and then his microphone cord was unplugged by an angry student. College dropout Michael Moore put a microphone in Republican Congressman Mark Kennedy's face and asked for his help in getting more members of Congress to send their own family members to fight the war on terror. Kennedy replied that he would love to and that he already had two nephews in the military, one on his way to Afghanistan. Moore's documentary shows Kennedy's imagebut cuts his answer from the film.

There is probably no conservative student newspaper in the country that has not been trashed or burned by liberals. Meanwhile, there is no known instance of College Republicans burning or trashing liberal student newspapers. To the contrary, conservatives get a kick out of watching liberals try to thrash their way to a coherent argument ("bush lied, kids died!"). In fact, if it weren't for conservatives with a taste for schadenfreude, literally no one would be listening to Air Americaassuming it's still on the air by the time this book hits the stores.

Life was much better for liberals when there were only three TV stations airing precious little news. Back in the pre-cable news days, public political debate consisted exclusively of liberal Democrats debating radical Democrats. Now that conservatives are physically present on cable news, liberals are terrified they might have to respond to a conservative point, so liberals filibuster and interrupt, hoping to never hear it. Turn on your TV right now and you'll see a liberalprobably Julian Epsteintrying to Filibuster his way out of having to respond to a conservative.

If you can somehow force a liberal into a point-counterpoint argument, his retorts will bear no relation to what you saidunless you were, in fact, talking about your looks, your age, your weight, your personal obsessions, or whether you are a fascist. In the famous liberal two-step, they leap from one idiotic point to the next, so you can never nail them. It's like arguing with someone with Attention Deficit Disorder.

Inasmuch as liberals can only win arguments when no one is allowed to argue back, they enjoy creating fictional worlds in movies and on TV where liberals finally get to win. Remember the Andy Hardy movies? Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland would be headed for disasteruntil Andy shouted out, "I tell you what! Let's put on a play!" With liberals, it's "We're losing on the facts! Let's make a movie!"

In movies, liberals are invariably morally and intellectually superior. They are also good-looking, witty, compassionate, and always rightbasically Bob Byrd, Jerry Nadler, Al Franken, and Hillary Clinton rolled into one adorable bunch. Only in Hollywood is Robert Redford considered a dead ringer for Bob Woodward, Emma Thompson for Hillary Clinton, Dustin Hoffman for Carl Bernstein, and Andy Garcia for Al Franken. Typically, Republicans are played by hard-boiled B-list types whose only other roles are as cruel high school football coaches or rogue army drill instructors. Reflect on the fact that Anthony Hopkins played both Nixon and Hannibal Lecter.

The only policemen in the universe who are not aware that "cop-killer bullets" have never killed a cop are the ones on Law & Order. Only in liberal fantasy movies like Coming Home is a patriotic hawk the impotent klutz who shoots himself in the foot, and the liberal dove the sexually potent one. Only in Hollywood could a sitcom that parodies a U.S. president and is titled There's My Bush be about George Bush rather than Bill Clinton. (The show was unceremoniously and quietly canceled because of low ratings.) In movies, we always learn that there is no reason, ever, to Fight a war. Unless the Earth is invaded by aliens from outer space with huge scary spaceships and death rays and men of all races and nationalities can unite against a common enemylike in Independence Day. So if the Earth is ever invaded by hostile aliens from outer space, you won't have to ask liberals twice to take up arms in defense of Planet Earth.

It was inevitable, given what liberals value, that on the popular sitcom Friends beautiful actresses would be depicted hyperventilating over George Stephanopoulos's Fictional manhood when he drops his Fictional towel. Only in the bizarro world of Hollywood can such a harmless little chap as George exude massive sexual potency. On HGTV, the female host of What Not to Wear leeringly jokes about seeing Bill Clinton in a Speedo. In real life, Monica Lewinsky can be heard on tape describing Clinton's executive branch thus: "Think of a thumb." No wonder liberals prefer the world of make-believe.

In addition to all Oliver Stone movies and all Michael Moore documentaries (Oliver Stone Without the Talent!), an extremely abbreviated list of liberal fantasy movies includes:

The Day After Tomorrow (not to be confused with Next Friday, starring Ice Cube)message: liberals are right about global warming! The hyper-silly disaster epic is based on a book coauthored by UFO/black-helicopter/the-CIA-is-beaming-microwaves-into-my-teeth-fillings guru and late-night AM radio maven Art Bell.

The Cider House Rulesmessage: liberals are right about abortion! Kindly small-town abortionist (Michael Caine) just wants to help unwed pregnant girls. Disaster strikes when it turns out the young lad taking over Caine's practice (Tobey Maguire) is opposed to abortion because it's "wrong." The lad soon learns the error of his ways after a black teenaged girl from a family of apple pickers is raped and impregnated by her own father and needs an abortion. (You can't remind people too often that most women having abortions were raped by their own fathers.) This Film was a veritable ode to moral relativism and the hideous notion that there are no rules save the ones we make up ourselves as we go along. Shockingly, it only won a single Oscar.

The American Presidentmessage: democrats will vote their consciences even if it hurts them politically and all republicans ever do is call people names. In this movie, Michael Douglas plays Bill Clinton as Clinton would like to behandsome, thin, courageous, liberal, and widowed. The president's top Republican adversary goes on national TV and calls the president's girlfriend a "whore." So it's a plausible story.

Davemessage: liberals are right about federal spending on the homeless! Only the president can put an end to homelessness, and he's got to cut $500 million in pork from the discretionary budget to do so. He finds the money by poring over the entire federal budget (during an "all-nighter") with the help of his tax guy, played by Charles Grodin. (Of course, to do that, the president would need a line-item veto. Now which party, do you suppose, supports a line-item veto and which opposes it?)

Of the dozens and dozens of nonfiction books to come out about the Clinton presidency, only one was made into a movie: The Hunting of the President, by fanatical Clinton apologists Joe Conason and Gene Lyons. (Message: liberals were right about Clinton, even if there are only two liberals left defending him!) The intriguing plotline is this: A lot of mean people tried to bring down a great president.

Leaving aside which account most closely resembles the truth, which one of these sounds like a better movie plot:

Movie Plot A: Through the freak accident of a third-party candidacy, a lying, horndog Jimmy Swaggart type somehow ends up as president of the United States. As his Eva Peron-style wife tries to socialize all industry, the president gallivants with Hollywood starlets, has repeated affairs, accepts illegal campaign donations from foreign enemies, and uses the vast powers of the federal government to frighten and intimidate the people who get in his way. Some end up dead, some have their secret FBI files pored over by a former bar bouncer, some are audited by the IRS. He is Finally brought down when he ejaculates on an intern's dress and lies about it under oathand it turns out the intern has kept the dress!

Amazingly, Hollywood actually made a movie, Bob Roberts, in which the slick, cosmetic tricks of the sophisticated right-wing political machine hoodwink the American people. (So that's why liberals are losing all the arguments in real life!)

Since cable news has begun forcing liberals to confront opposing points of view in real life rather than movie scripts where the Republicans' only argument is to call the president's girlfriend a "whore," liberals have been trying to drop emotionalism as their main argument. Their new posture is mock hardheaded realism. Now they begin sentences with phrases like, "The fact of the matter is," or "Experts say"followed by comically false assertions. Liberals flex their spindly little muscles and announce that everything that used to make them crygun ownership, racial profiling, missile defense, school vouchers, torturing terror suspectssimply "doesn't work." The fact is, it doesn't work, this is according to several studies, and no, you can't see them, why would you ask?

After nineteen nearly identical-looking Muslim men hijacked four airplanes and murdered 3,000 Americans, people weren't in much of a mood for liberal preachiness about racial profiling. So instead of crying and trying to make Americans feel guilty, liberals pretended to be hardheaded realists. Asked if there was anything wrong with ethnic profiling at airports after 9/11, Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz said, "Yes, it doesn't work." Other, better ideas, he said, were face-recognition technology and national ID cards. These would work greatif only we knew who the terrorists were. But if we knew who the terrorists were, the only plane they'd be boarding would be headed to Guantanamo and we wouldn't need to search anyone at all.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

How to Talk to a Liberal (if You Must): The World According to Ann Coulter 3.3 out of 5based on
0 ratings.
98 reviews.

Guest

More than 1 year ago

I am writing this brief review as a life-long, reformed Democratic/Liberal turned middle aged (39 year old) midwestern female who now considers herself a firm Conservative with some Libertarian ideas about governnment and no affiliation with either Democrats or Republicans! I don't vote by party anymore - I vote candidate by candidate and issue by issue. As sane people should do! People like Ann, Rush, Bill, Tucker and Glenn helped open my eyes to things and seeing other sides to issues that for years was glossed over or not reported at all. I started reading Ann's columns this year and her books too. After a life time of being brain washed by the big 3 tv stations, major newspapers and magazines and columnists in this country...I finally did my own research and soul searching and realized my beliefs were not what the media told me they should be! So...I now get to see the world from the other side and find comfort in being slightly in the middle if not to the right. When I look at all the arguments I used to have for abortion, evolution, faith, marriage, infidelity, guns, immigration, terrorism, etc....I am shocked that I bought the liberal arguments when the facts, data and science aren't even CLOSE to supporting them. Ann is a straight shooter on details and only those who refuse to hear any line but, the one they tow, will be upset. If you can't laugh at some of the one liner's Ann comes up with - you need to get a life!!! She pulls no punches in her daily writings/articles and makes no excuses for it. Just because you don't support her position or others like her (well in the majority these days)...people don't have to get ugly and nasty about her personally. Doing that just supports that you can't fight with facts, data and science...if you did, you would loose the argument. People who gave this book 1-2 stars are simply writing negative comments to pull her status down and need to seek private therapy for their personal issues. Those who truely bought and read the book to learn, grow and see all sides gave objective feedback even if it was different than their own. If you aren't determined to bring her down, this book deserved 3-4 stars easily. Over-all, Ann's book is an easy read. You might not learn anything new but, she does tie together alot of loose ends on big issues of our day. My favorite chapters were This is War, A Muslim By Any Other Name Blows Up Just The Same, When Bad Ideas (Liberalism) Happen to Good People (You). I now root on people like Ann and her book - we need someone pushing the limits in this time of divisions over regligion, politics, war, economics and the sanctity of life. If they can't speak out, who can? We will thank books like this one day for opening up dialogue to EVERYONE not just the left. This book may not give all the answers but, it does get everyone talking and that's part of the plan. Consider also reading her book Godless - it was actually a better read than this one was. It is more like a novel and goes into more specific detail on areas and does not jump around quite so much. So...four stars for How To Talk To A Liberal. Add it to your DIVERSIFIED library if you have one. We do.

Guest

More than 1 year ago

Hm...everyone is saying they don't like the book because it is based on lies. Well, how can it be based on lies if she points to certain publications and television comments made by these people? Ironically, the liberals on here are acting just as she says they do. And it's a bunch of lies? The liberals on here are acting just as she says they do in the book.

Miggz77

More than 1 year ago

First off, I am a conservative accountant who idols Hayek's work. I grew up around a republican family and high school, but went to a liberal-focused university. I am very right in my economics and right on about half of the big social issues.
Ann Coulter's book is riddled with personal attacks, strawman arguments, and warped data. It is clear she is writing this book to please her audience and not try and convert moderate republicans to her side. This book is just another one of her methods of drawing fame and attention to herself in order to make even more money. She is similar to Kevin Trudeau in this manner; claim the absurd, state it in a psuedo-logical fashion, and bounce around the networks for money.

Guest

More than 1 year ago

I don't actually agree with everything in this book, but I do admire Ann for saying exactly how she feels and not holding back for anyone or anything. I am actually a liberal, but very much enjoyed this book. It is very funny that us liberals do become very outraged at anyone or anything that points a judging finger in our direction. Most of us lack the social graces and poise to have self control when it comes to our out bursts of anger towards the conservatives. If you can finish this book without lashing out or 'writing everything YOU think is wrong with this book in the margins', you're a pretty strong person and should be proud of yourself.

Guest

More than 1 year ago

All the reviews in here that rate this book as a '1' must be from the socialist left. This book is the best book on liberalese speak I have found. Ann does a remarkable job of exposing the lies and misrepresentations of the left. Way to go Ann!

Guest

More than 1 year ago

I am a reader of many 'political' books...all viewpoints. I'm always interested in what both sides of a story are. However, I found this book so full of spin that it literally set my head spinning! It's still interesting to see how Ann arrives at her perspective.

Notice how liberals come to review conservative books and rate them ones, when conservatives do not even bother rating liberal garbage. Coulter's book is funny, witty, and sometimes flat-out outrageous. I actually do not agree with her on many issues, specially religious ones, but Ann sets political correctness aside and shows how Christianity is set at a double standard, how a little common sense would hel make better homeland security policies, and how the left overlooks real threats to our way of life, from mid-twentieth century communism to today's Islamofascism.

Guest

More than 1 year ago

Ann Coulter writes everything that I have always thought, but haven't been able to put into words. She is a mind reader if there ever was one. Anyone who is even remotely into politics should read this - conservatives to get a good laugh, and liberals to become enlightened.

Guest

More than 1 year ago

Liberal, Conservative, or Moderate...whatever you consider yourself to be, you must read this book! If you want to call yourself well-read and well-rounded regarding American politics, then heed this extremely conservative viewpoint. The mature are able to analyze all angles, even the ones that do not make them comfortable! I dare all 'Intellectuals' to analyze this!

Guest

More than 1 year ago

One thing about Ann Coulter: she is writes press for the Republican party. If you share her views, of course you will take this book as 'fact.' Unfortunately, she is a little delusional. I saw her on TV a little while ago saying that George Bush never said that Iraq had nuclear weapons as a reason to support going to Iraq. I did not support the war on Iraq, but even if you do, you have to admit that the WAS the reason for going. This makes it kind of difficult for me to take Coulter's words to heart. And to say Liberals hate America is pretty off too. Liberals and Republicans just have different opinions, it doesn't mean that any one party likes America any less. I find it difficult to write a book with facts, considering her 'points' are merely opinion. Looks like she found it difficult too. But still, this book does what it's meant to: please Republicans.

Guest

More than 1 year ago

Ann Coulter tells the true nature of the Democratic party better than any previous author. She understands and explains all of their flaws, lies, and incredibly low values/lifestyles with research and evidence to back up all her claims. A witty and incredibly entertaining/informative book. Michael Moore has met his match. I'll never look at American politics the same way again.

Guest

More than 1 year ago

She is truly delusional- more focused on faith then fact. What a waste of trees- just like a conservative republican!

Guest

More than 1 year ago

This book offers a lot of opinions and the 'facts' are vague. I wasn't able to take Ms. Coulter seriously.

Guest

More than 1 year ago

This book was extremely disappointing in my opinion. I've been a member of the Republican Party for 37 years and this is not the message that conservatives--especially those who remember the Reagan years--want to convey. Coulter failed to draw the line between opinion and fact on too many occasions; often leaving certain facts, which should easily strengthen her argument, coming off as partisan belly-aching. This was definately NOT the book I was looking forward to.

Guest

More than 1 year ago

This is a master shepard at work. Being able to out-babble an opponent shows nothing but weakness and lack of substance. But,she has held her conservative stance- her books are another shameful waste of paper and time.

Guest

More than 1 year ago

Once again, Ann strikes a nerve by using facts and the law to make her points. Liberals hate this (hence the poorly written one star reviews by liberals who can't bother to rwead, oh, um I mean read). Ann is feisty and to the point. Liberals hate that because by and large she is right about liberal hypocrisy, nihilism and the overall p.c. moral relativism that we now see in our society as moral decay. Thank goodness she speaks to the silent majority.

Guest

More than 1 year ago

This book is fluff. Billing the author as an 'intellectual' is like calling George Bush a scholar. Not worth the effort.

Guest

More than 1 year ago

apparently, some people who are reading this book don't realize it is a collection of ann coulter's articles. another thing people don't seem to realize is that she backs up her opinions with facts. that's kinda hard to argue against. but liberals do anyway, as ann points out. this book is great if you want the truth about liberals in america. i would also like to point out the chapters that she has on the 2000 election. people who think that this book is a bunch of lies should definitely read that section to find out the truth. only liberals argue with the law and facts.

Guest

More than 1 year ago

Ideologies are very personal and therefore logically weak to impose on someone else. Her arguments are weak and she is obviously not governed by the dictates of reason. There are many great books available from barnes and noble but this is not one of them

Guest

More than 1 year ago

I've always like Ann Coulter. Her reasoning is usually flawless, and her conclusions are usually spot on. However this book, How to Talk to a Liberal, strikes me as a rushed, un-thought-out mess. Her attempts to draw ridicule towards the liberal way of thinking are certainly funny at first, but any sort of in-depth look at them tears them apart immediately. I'm worried the thoughtful yet mocking Coulter I respect and enjoy has sold out, and now writes pandering prose directed at the far right, who have no concept of who the liberals she so hates are. If you liked Slander or Treason, don't even bother picking up this book, its a dissapointment all the way.

Guest

More than 1 year ago

You've got to be kidding me. Coulter rarely bothers to make a salient point. The whole book is full of inaccuracies, gross exaggerations and mudslinging. Its harsh, juvenile, and worst of all boring.

chichikov on LibraryThing

More than 1 year ago

Funny and insightful. Liberals wouldn't get so mad at her if she wasn't hitting close to home.

rebelwriter85 on LibraryThing

More than 1 year ago

Generally terrible, incoherent, anti-intellectual writing. However, good for a laugh and sometimes to see where the Democrats need to improve their image.

rampaginglibrarian on LibraryThing

More than 1 year ago

As a liberal, myself, i find Ann Coulter a very, um, "interesting" personality. Some articles i just had to grit my teeth and get through; on the other hand, sometimes she had a few salient points other times, i find mself laughing aloud quite often--and not always at her.

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